Better two and a half months late than never

In this week’s episode “Dance with Somebody,” Glee pays tribute to the late music legend Whitney Houston. Although there has been little to no mention of her in the nearly 3 months since her death, Will decides the Glee kids are really broken up about it, so their assignment is to do a Whitney song. And although it took them a while to make it, Glee’s Whitney tribute did turn out pretty good.

“Dance with Somebody” was certainly not as good as their Michael Jackson tribute, but they did manage to do justice to most of the Whitney songs they chose — after all, they had some pretty quality source material. The one notable exception to this, I think, was the Brittany/Santana duet “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me).” Brittany and Santana do sound great together, but Glee’s interpretation removes all the delicious 80s charm of the original. Instead they club-ify it, adding a strange bass beat and one of those horrendous swelling mosquito buzzes you hear everywhere today (think Rihanna’s “We Found Love.”) But other than that one miss, all of the covers were spot-on.

With 7 longer than usual songs, most of the episode took a backseat to the Whitney theme. Here’s what made it in between songs:

Kurt and Blaine had their first real fight. Kurt began exchanging flirty text messages with a boy named Chandler, who may be the most irritating, absurd characters ever to appear on the show. Blaine considers this cheating, and for a few moments you wonder if Glee’s super-couple is going to break up. But Kurt apologizes, and Blaine confesses that he’s worried about losing Kurt after he moves to New York. All is well.

Rachel and Santana admit that they are going to miss each other after they graduate, and they begin to regret not being friends over the past 3 years. They decide to make up for lost time, and Rachel gleefully declares them friends and tells Santana to hang a picture of her in her locker. Kind of out of the blue and kind of weird, but still nice.

Quinn and Joe (the religious guy with the dreadlocks) begin a relationship after Joe accompanies her to some of her physical therapy sessions. But Joe is torn between staying true to his faith and succumbing to “sins of the flesh.” So we’ve got that to look forward to in future episodes.

Will has a little breakdown trying to make sure all the Glee kids will be able to perform at his wedding. Seeing this made me wonder if all teachers get weirdly attached to their students, but then I realized that they have been with him throughout all of his life-changing events of the last few years. But he sees them all singing together in a non-mandatory Glee practice and his fears are laid to rest.

So there you have it, Glee’s Whitney Houston tribute. Good songs, interesting new plots arising — a pretty solid episode, all in all. Next week’s episode, “Choke,” will center around Kurt and Rachel’s NYADA auditions. It will also feature Whoopi Goldberg as a guest star, so make sure to watch next Tuesday, at 8 p.m.